There were at least 20 families at our friend's Max place to celebrate Pascal big 40 and a few other birthdays, twice as many kids and probably half as many dogs. It rained most of the afternoon and his house building site became a big mud hole for the kids to enjoy! There were two bonfires going, lots of tarps and a few campers with lit woodstoves. The sun kept coming and going and there was quite a bit of rainbow spotting.

I stood there in the rain, boots deep in mud, listening to a friend's aborted sailboat trip, a new pregnancy, a child's suspected diagnosis, a summer job in Old Crow...

Catching up is good, but I realized that we do not spend enough time here to feed most of those friendships. We just have time to get up to date, to scratch the surface of our relationships. I left feeling empty because of the words that weren't shared and all the many stories that could have been told...

On the drive back, I came to the conclusion that our friendships do not stop when we became nomads, but for the most part, the communication did. Every time we come back, we are received with eager embraces. Everything is just like if we never left: dinners, game nights, great conversations. And we leave again, and the silence resumes. Friendship hibernation.